


wherever there's hope, there's a trial

by labicheramure



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Consensual Violence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2014-02-18
Packaged: 2018-01-12 23:42:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1204858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labicheramure/pseuds/labicheramure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren couldn't look at her eyes, couldn't look at any part of her but briefly, her shamelessness setting him ill at ease. Was he thinking of the Female Titan, she wondered, as his gaze traced the lines of her stomach?</p>
            </blockquote>





	wherever there's hope, there's a trial

She died, and was born again in fire, pure, terrible heat melting into her consciousness until she was forced to take her first, smoky breath. All at once, the world became real, the dirt she touched searing coals, the burning scent her own flesh and clothes, melting and sticking together. Terror tore at her heart as she blindly tried to crawl forward, wondering if she had been birthed just to die in this cruel, sick way, burning like the witch she was. 

Later, Annie would reflect on how appropriate it was that, in this moment, she opened her eyes to find Eren staring back at her, the most perfect demon for her personal hell. In the very next instant his arms were around her, lifting her out and back into a place so startlingly cold that it hurt nearly as much as the fire. She crumpled to the floor with him, gulping air like the furnace had drowned her.

"My God... It really worked..."

"Eren!"

They were pulled apart instantly. Mikasa held Eren panting against her, steam rising from his burnt arms. But Annie was the one he watched, as someone lifted her into a sitting position, pressed cold fingers to her neck to check her pulse, felt her ribs for breath. It was strange, she thought, how relieved he looked when it was confirmed she was alive. It was strange that he would be the one to pull her off her pyre. She wanted to open her mouth, to say something, anything. But when she did, nothing came out but bile and tar, purging all the death she had swallowed before.

"She's going into shock," someone (a woman?) was saying. "We need to at least treat her burns externally - "

She was so dizzy. Was this really what she had woken up for? It felt like a dream, the kind where the world was shifted, wrong, where the human beings with every reason to leave her in the fire were wrapping her hands with medicated bandages, laying cool cloth against her head. It was Armin who did that, looking so genuinely worried for her that she laughed and laughed, until her body caught up with her, and she lapsed into black sleep.

....

Annie woke up in a low cot, draped in blankets so heavy that her sleeping mind had thought them stones, pressing her into the earth as she requested more weight. She threw them off as soon as she was able, unwrapping the sweat-slick bandages from around her healed burns, examining the fresh-made skin as she sat up. Beneath her wrappings, she was naked, pink-skinned and soft in a way that felt unfamiliar, like the cloudy look of a snake's body right before it shed its skin. There was a tray next to her, bearing a pitcher of water and a roll that was still warm when she felt it. She left it, and cupped her hands to get a drink of cool, clean water. 

She wondered if anyone would stop her if she tried to leave the room. It was easy to think that they wouldn't be stupid enough to leave her without a guard, but then again, they left her untied, the biggest mistake they could have made. She decided to try and stand, to test her strength, but her head seemed like a stone atop her shoulders, anchoring her to the ground. Not for the first time, Annie cursed her body's limits as she fell back on her makeshift bed. 

"Annie?"

The door opened. She heard the click of a lock being put back into place, heard Eren's voice, soft in a way it shouldn't be, echoing ever so slightly. She stayed facing the wall. He was the last person she wanted to see right now, especially if he was going to speak like that, all nice and calm and other disgusting things Eren should not be. Maybe her nakedness would embarrass him into leaving. Then again, she thought, as she saw his shadow kneeling over the cot, maybe not. 

"You awake?"

"No," Annie said, rolling over and sitting up on her elbows. "I'm still sleeping. Look me in the eye, do I look like I'm awake?" 

Eren couldn't look at her eyes, couldn't look at any part of her but briefly, her shamelessness setting him ill at ease. Was he thinking of the Female Titan, she wondered, as his gaze traced the lines of her stomach?

"Hanji said they couldn't put any clothes on you or it'd irritate the burns." He spoke to her knees. In retaliation, she stretched her legs over the cot, leaving them splayed and open on either side. "I can bring you some, later."

"It's fine." 

He gave her a look that told her that nothing was fine. The pure, kinetic energy that ran through his body was still there, but wrapped up tight in a tension that seemed to hurt him with every short breath he took. He looked like a man on the precipice of some great unknown, both wonderful and terrible, fearful in the unimaginable possibility it brought. He looked like the last thing he wanted to do was jump. Annie decided to push him. 

Without warning, she brought her knee up and into his ribs, savoring the familiar bruising impact that sent him sprawled across the floor. He gave one cough, two; it seemed she knocked the breath out of him. He did not ask why she had done it, he did not complain about the pain. All he did was stand up and move into position, a mirror of their last encounter, only this time they were both naked in very different ways: Annie, all skin, her soft parts all exposed, and Eren, who wore his heart not on his sleeve but all over his body, every twitch of muscle imbued with such emotion that it was a wonder he was alive. He swung at her stiffly, that fear still laying pins in his instinct. It disgusted her to look at him, so she aimed her next punch at his face. 

Breaking open her knuckles on Eren's blunt teeth was the most alive she felt since she woke up in the furnace. She watched with fascination as he stumbled backwards, holding his bloody nose, licking his split lip. He stared at her with the helpless caution of a kicked dog, unsure of what provoked his pain, unwilling to move for fear of doing it again.

"Just what have they done to you?"

Annie said it more to herself than him, but he still flinched in a way that told her she was at least a little right.

"It's not - It's not like that, Annie!" he said, leaving his mouth to clench his dirty fists at his sides. "I'm just...tired, okay? Just really tired."

She kicked his legs out from under him in one precise sweep, following him to the ground to press her knee in his stomach until she could feel the edge of his ribs. She held his wrists above his head, nails digging into his skin, into cool, wet earth. 

"I'm very sorry," she said. "Maybe I can give you a concussion. That's worth a few days in bed at least."

Annie's teeth were bared, her expression more open and feeling than it had been in a long time, because she didn't care anymore; it was over, she'd lost her bet, and she was so, so tired. It was this, of all things, that got to him, that unraveled the cords of muscle wound tight around him. She knew it the moment it happened, just as sure as she knew her own bones and sinew and skin. He spoke, and she felt it in the nape of her neck; it was just like Father said, she knew, she just knew.

"Annie, stop."

Her body froze, though she would never know if it was because of his voice, or because she caught the ugly look in his eyes, and became afraid of what would happen if she did move. Eren's hands came around her wrists like shackles, like he just had to make sure, no matter what, that she wouldn't go anywhere. Stuck in position, suddenly helpless, she laughed, strangely giddy, a wild electric feeling running under her skin.

"I knew it was you," she said, matter of factly as she pulled them both into a seated position. He let her, startled into curiosity. "I knew it the moment I saw you at Trost."

"Knew what?" And there it was again, that sensation invading her body, drilling into her spine and spreading out from there. It was all of his potential summed up, his true strength, finally pushed out of him after years of being told to hold it back. It was exactly what she wanted him to be. It terrified her. 

"Didn't you always say you wanted to kill all the Titans?" Annie couldn't look at him except for from the corner of eye, her gaze half-disguised by her hair. "Out of everyone in the world, you might be the only one who has any sort of chance of doing that. How lucky." 

Eren's expression sort of shifted; moved from confusion, to realization, and then to the wildness that had once been so familiar to her. It was the face he wore when he finally figured out one of her moves, when his body was, for once, in tandem with his mind, and he could only just contain his eagerness to use it. Knowing that, it was astonishingly stupid for Annie not to have expected him to slam her down on her back, sitting on her folded knees, not looking away, not letting her look away.

"Hey," he said, infuriatingly calm, all potential energy, waiting for the little push that would let it go. "What do you know about me, Annie?"

His thighs were warm. His breath smelled awful, and she wanted to kiss him. 

"I know that you can do anything you want." She took a breath without knowing why she needed to. "So do it. There's nothing stopping you."

She didn't really know what she was talking about anymore. She didn't know what he wanted to do, but she knew the look of someone thinking they were limited, someone so trapped in expectations and ideas that they shook with the frustration of it, without noticing, of course, how carefully they were picking out the offal of their own ugly humanity. And it was fine, for her, for the others. They had to do it to live, and she had long accepted that she had no future if she couldn't become a monster, she had no future no matter what. But Eren was a being made wholly of what he felt, of what he was willing to shout earnestly over the heads of a laughing crowd. Gagged and skinned, he was just the bones of a weapon no one could use, a sword on the wall, all its raw power nailed down. 

"Okay."

He kissed her. It wasn't a good kiss, or even an okay one, more a sloppy, drooling invasion of her mouth, the taste of his split lip sliding down her tongue, into her throat. He lifted his mouth to breathe, panting like a dog, eying her like he wanted to reach inside her to find out what she was. For the first time, Annie thought she might not mind.

It was her that reached for him this time, lifting her shoulders to press her lips to his jaw, lifting her hips to feel him against her, just barely hard, but that was enough, that was enough. She made this little noise that startled her, like she was waking up to stretch.

"What are you doing?" He didn't seem very concerned. 

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't know. A lot of things."

It was a stupid answer to a stupid question, but it was better, probably, if they didn't say anything. The more Annie said, the less she was sure of anything, and right now, moving in silence, she was at least sure that she wanted Eren in her. Grabbing his head, she pressed it into her chest, clawing down his back to pull herself into an upright position. He grumbled and bit one of her breasts in retaliation, or maybe because that was what he thought he was supposed to do. 

He felt thick between her legs, heavy when she pulled him out and stroked him in fascination. He gasped like she was hurting him, soft and pathetic, so sensitive that he swore when she touched the tip. He reached around and fisted his hands in her hair in want of anything better to do with them, tugging painfully when she squeezed him just to see what would happen. 

"Are you gonna...?" he panted into her ear, muffled and groggy. 

"I don't know," she said absently, reaching under his shirt to feel the searing heat of his belly. "Maybe I'll let you go back to your captain like this."

He grabbed clumsily at her hand, blunt nails grazing her knuckles, sweaty fingers not quite grasping hers. She pushed, and he went down easily, eyes rolling back like he was dizzy. Annie stood up, uncharacteristically slow and delicate. She looked out over him, laid out like so much raw meat, helpless, even with all the barely-contained strength coiled in his heaving chest. The whole thing was as wrong as it was right, a filthy scene that her selfish heart wanted to wrap up and keep forever.

Eren gasped when she dropped to her knees over him, went tense and wide-eyed when she sat herself down. For a moment she thought he had already come, but no, he was still there in her, thrusting shallowly with what little leverage he had. She leaned over and watched him as she moved. He burned so much less than she expected, warm and nearly safe, almost comforting in the familiar way he frowned at her, straining for the control she denied him. Even though, she was sure, he didn't really want it. 

"Annie, I - " He clamped his mouth shut before he bit his tongue. The fact that he was trying to talk at all was completely ridiculous. She indulged him, kissed him sweetly on the mouth, swallowed whatever idiot thing he was about to say. He pinned her to him, hands sliding down her back, grabbing at the meat of her thighs. They had to work together to get their friction, then, moving against each other until something like a rhythm was born. He was already close enough that it didn't matter, greedily and rudely biting her neck simply because it was there, his legs trembling under her. 

The feel of it, when he did come, was strange in a way she didn't entirely like, but it wasn't like either of them could help it. And it wasn't enough of a turn off that it stopped her from finishing herself after she stood up, legs spread over him like she was marking her territory. It was, overall, she thought as she sat back on the cot, very disgusting, and very wonderful. If she tried to think of it as a delicate young girl, it wasn't the right kind of first time at all, but Eren was right, she wasn't like that. So the sweat in her hairline, the slight ache her throat had from being chewed on, and even the dizzy feeling of overexertion rising in her head, were nice things, things to cherish. 

Eren groaned next to her, rolling over in a way reminiscent of an exhausted, satisfied animal. But he was not an animal, not at all, because the first thing he did was try to wipe at a wet spot on his knee.

"You got something on my pants." 

Annie ignored him a moment, laying back, staring at the sliver of morning light filtering in through the basement's tiny window. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine what it might feel like on her skin. 

"Sorry," she said, already fading, her own voice already moving far away. She rolled to look at him, standing up, tucking himself in, brushing the dirt off his clothes with a fastidiousness she had never known him to possess. "Can you hand me the blanket?" 

He grabbed one of the threadbare quilts from the corner, shook it out, approached her with something far too much like worry on his face.

"You look pale."

"Yeah."

Wordlessly, he covered her, careful and calm now, unwound. Thoughtlessly, she wrapped herself up in it, warm, not hot, not burning. 

"You know, Annie," he said, from the top of the stairs, or maybe much farther than that. "I'm not the only person in the world who can do anything they want. Everyone can. Even you."


End file.
